Monday, January 17, 2005

Hot Technology For 2005

From Vnunet.com Hot technology for 2005.

One of the things that makes writing about technology so interesting for us at Computeractive is the rate at which it changes. Today's cutting-edge device is often tomorrow's commodity item.

Many of the devices we take for granted today, such as handheld computers, digital cameras and colour printers, were once in the realm of science fiction. Indeed, many owe their presence in your pocket to advances made to further medicine and interstellar research

Anna Lagerkvist: Barcode scanners

How many times have you seen a poster advertising an event and wanted more information about it? This ability could soon be in the palm of your hand as emerging mobile phone camera technology makes it possible to access data by scanning a barcode.

The barcodes could be printed at the entrance to a place of interest, or on posters advertising an event. After you scanned the barcode with your camera phone, the data would be transmitted using the phone network to be interpreted. Information about the place or event would then be sent back to your phone within seconds.

Information would always be up to date, unlike posters, which are yesterday's news as soon as they leave the printing press. The codes could also give special offers to customers of specific phone networks. The immediacy of this technology opens many doors of opportunity for consumers.

BT has already shown interest in the technology and we could see the first services emerging in 2005. We may never have to root around for a pen and paper to write down the contact details for an event again.

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